Editorial: Earthquake concerns

The Texas Railroad Commission needs to regulate wastewater disposal.

Copyright 2015: Houston Chronicle

Updated 2:52 pm, Monday, May 4, 2015

Photo: LM Otero, STF

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﻿In November 2014, Director of Public Works Scott Passmore checks a solar-powered seismic monitor installed by Southern Methodist University to monitor earthquakes in Reno, Texas, a rural community surrounded by fracking. less

﻿In November 2014, Director of Public Works Scott Passmore checks a solar-powered seismic monitor installed by Southern Methodist University to monitor earthquakes in Reno, Texas, a rural community surrounded ... more

Photo: LM Otero, STF

Editorial: Earthquake concerns

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Steve Brown, the Fort Bend County political activist who was the Democratic nominee for an open seat on the Texas Railroad Commission last fall, was a voice crying in the wilderness when he warned that the oil and gas industry needed to answer for a spate of earthquakes across Texas, particularly in North Texas' gas-rich Barnett Shale. Brown, of course, got rolled in the Republican landslide, and his warnings, for the most part, went unheeded. Until now.

A peer-reviewed study headed by a group of researchers at SMU, published April 21, confirmed what Brown and most everybody else not connected to oil and gas have suspected: Gas production - specifically, the disposal of fracking fluids - is the most likely cause of dozens of earthquakes that began shaking the towns of Azle and Reno, northwest of Fort Worth. The study represents some of the most conclusive evidence yet that human activity, not Mother Earth, is responsible for faults that have not moved in hundreds of millions of years to begin shifting. Drilling areas in South and West Texas also are shaking more often than in the past.

The same day the SMU-led report was published, scientists with the Oklahoma Geological Survey issued a statement concluding that the injection or disposal of underground water in the fracking process is "very likely" the cause of hundreds of earthquakes recorded recently in Oklahoma. They noted that earthquake activity in the Sooner State was 70 times greater in 2013 than it was before 2008 and is now about 600 times greater than what is considered normal.

Perhaps the least likely place to be shaken by fracking-related temblors is under the Capitol dome in Austin, where lawmakers and regulators have been anxious to deny the connection. State Rep. Myra Crownover, the Republican who represents Denton, the city smacked down by lawmakers when it sought to regulate fracking within its city limits, told the Austin American-Statesman that the SMU report "is not the definitive study."

"Mother Earth has been moving since time began," said Crownover, who chairs the Texas House Energy Resources Subcommittee on Seismic Activity, which was formed last year in response to the North Texas temblors. She's right, of course, but North Texas, Central Oklahoma and other areas that have been shaking recently had been still and stable for aeons before the frenzy of oil and gas activity.

The Railroad Commission, the agency that's supposed to regulate the oil and gas industry, also has been reluctant to make the link - dare we suggest because commissioners have accepted more than $2.3 million in political contributions in the past five years from the industry they ostensibly regulate? The commission's official position has been that no "significant correlation between faulting and injection practices" has been proven, although that position seems to be shifting a bit. Last year the commission hired a seismologist to study the earthquake issue and also issued new rules for operators filing applications for disposal wells. Commissioner Ryan Sitton, the Republican candidate who handily defeated Brown last fall, will convene a public hearing on the matter this week.

No one's talking about a fracking moratorium - in Texas, at least - but the Railroad Commission needs to get serious about regulating wastewater disposal. That includes shutting down operations in earthquake-prone areas. And Crownover and other lawmakers in thrall to the industry need to pay as much attention to constituents rightly worried about property damage and the possibility of even more serious seismic activity as they pay to the industry's bottom line. (Few Texans, by the way, have earthquake insurance.)

Tremors have been felt in downtown Dallas, which prompted Mayor Mike Rawlings to say that he's concerned about how earthquakes will affect aging infrastructure in his city. As the mayor noted in remarks to the Dallas Morning News, we're talking about a public safety issue.

With oil prices down and the fracking frenzy cooling for the moment, this is an opportune time for lawmakers, regulators and the industry itself to take stock of the earthquake/fracking fluid connection and its numerous implications for the environment, public safety and other concerns. This week's Railroad Commission hearing is a good place to start.